


coda

by adietxt



Category: One Piece
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-16 23:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11263146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adietxt/pseuds/adietxt
Summary: In Zoro’s defense, hewasplanning to go along with Sanji’s plan.Be subtle, Sanji had reminded him for the hundredth time before they entered the familiar floating restaurant,I’m going to break it to him slowly.Which is kind of pointless, in hindsight, considering he’s now standing naked at Sanji’s door at two in the morning as Zeff towers over him.





	1. first variation

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://sanjisock.tumblr.com/post/159336440492/can-you-write-a-zosan-canon-prompt-got-a-chance) from anonymous on tumblr:
>
>> "Got a chance to visit home. Kind of nervous to meet your parent." Established relationship, canon-verse.  
> 

Zoro enters the men’s bunk room only to find Sanji standing in front of the mirror, fixing his tie for the tenth time this morning.

“Why are you dressing up?” He asks, even though he knows the answer to that.

Sanji throws him a scathing glare as a response.

Zoro sighs. “Why are we leaving now, anyway? The letter said to come for dinner.” 

Sanji doesn’t even bother to look at him this time, opting to fix his tie _again_. “I’m taking into account the time it takes for you to get lost.”

It’s Zoro’s turn to glare. “I _grew up_ in that dojo. I won’t get lost.”

And he isn’t. Really. Not _at all_. They’re now in the middle of the forest located at the edge of Zoro’s hometown in East Blue, and it’s been five hours since his conversation with Sanji, but he still maintains that they aren’t lost. Nope. He just… took a little detour.

“I grew up in that dojo,” Sanji irritatingly echoes Zoro’s earlier statements, his voice a pitch lower than usual in what he must think to be a clever imitation of the swordsman’s voice. “I won’t get lost.”

Zoro grits his teeth. “As a matter of fact, we’re not. This is the way to the dojo.”

Sanji looks at him sceptically. “The one at the foot of the mountain?”

“Yes?”

“Then why are we walking away from the only mountain on this island?” He says, thumb pointing the opposite direction to what, admittedly, seems to be the only mountain on the island.

“…I,” Zoro says, for a lack of better words.

Sanji throws his arms in the air. “At this rate, your stupid directionless mosshead won’t get us there in time.” 

And this should be normal for them, this back-and-forth bickering, but Zoro notices a certain edge in Sanji’s voice that is rarely present in their arguments. It stings, in a way that most people’s words won’t. Sanji does tend to have that effect on him.

So Zoro goes on the offensive, because he always does, with Sanji. “You slept on the wrong side of the bed, cook?” He fires back. “Wouldn’t stop whining since this morning. Why are you even so cranky today? Nervous?”

Zoro was frankly just throwing the words around, so it surprises him when Sanji’s jaw snapped close at the last word.

Bull’s eye.

“You’re nervous,” Zoro repeats, just to make sure.

Sanji starts walking faster. “Who’s nervous? I’m not nervous. I feel fantastic. _You’re_ nervous.”

Zoro bites back a laugh at Sanji’s babbling. He doesn’t feel like getting a kick square in the chest right now. Instead, he takes a hold on Sanji’s elbow, gently enough that Sanji could release himself from the grip if he wants to. “Cook,” he says, softer.

Sanji visibly deflates at the touch. “…Okay,” he admits, voice almost a whisper. “So I might be.”

Zoro frowns. “Why?”

“In the letter that you sent to Koshiro-san…you called me…” he makes a vague, almost helpless gesture with his free hand. “You know. Your…you know.”

“Boyfriend.”

Sanji turns a bright shade of pink at that. “ _Yeah,_ ” he says, clearing his throat, like he’s choking on the word. “Anyway, this man, your teacher, he raised you too, right? That means I’m meeting your parent. As your. You know.”

“Boyfriend,” Zoro says, again, and this time allows himself to laugh at Sanji’s reddening face. It’s amusing how the cook can do all the things he does in the bedroom, and yet can’t say the word ‘boyfriend’ or hold Zoro’s hand without turning as red as a lobster.

It’s not exactly the time to tease Sanji, though, because Zoro can see the genuine insecurity underneath the bravado and petty complaints. So he says not only what the cook needs to hear, but also what he knows to be true: “he’ll love you.”

Sanji grunts, disbelieving. “How would you know?”

Zoro thinks of Sanji — brave, passionate, sincere-to-a-fault Sanji, who dove headfirst into the chase for his dream, who pushes Zoro to be a better version of himself, and says, “because Kuina would have loved you.”

Sanji snaps his head towards him at that, wide-eyed.

Sanji knows, better than most, the gravity of Zoro’s statement, and they both know those are the last words Zoro would throw around easily. The cook is staring at him now, like he’s waiting for Zoro to take his words back. When Zoro doesn’t, Sanji finally huffs and drags the swordsman in the direction of the mountain, mumbling, “anyway, we’re late.”

It’s not until the dojo comes into view that he hears Sanji say, “…thanks.”

Zoro grins. “What for?”

Sanji pulls him into a kiss instead, and when their lips meet, Zoro can feel the curve of Sanji’s smile.


	2. second variation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Zoro's side of the prompt that I promised. He seems to have a harder time than Sanji; I'm sorry, Zoro. ^^;

In Zoro’s defense, he  _was_  planning to go along with Sanji’s plan.

 _Be subtle_ , Sanji had reminded him for the hundredth time before they entered the familiar floating restaurant,  _I’m going to break it to him slowly._

And it’s not like Zoro takes offense from it either — he understands that Sanji’s relationship with his old man is a complicated one, and Zoro doesn’t fault Sanji for never telling Zeff about their relationship until today. If there’s one thing Zoro is good at, it’s following Sanji’s pace — in a fight, in _anything_  — so Zoro played along; he stood at a distance as Sanji greeted Zeff, made sure he didn’t accidentally make a reference to their relationship, stopped himself from giving a kiss on Sanji’s cheek when the cook went out again to do some supply run for the restaurant.

No PDA, no hand holding, the whole package.  _Subtle_.

Which is kind of pointless, in hindsight, considering he’s now standing naked at Sanji’s door at two in the morning as Zeff towers over him.

Zoro’s hair is a mess, sticking up all over the place, like someone has been pulling at it, and there are dark, swollen marks peppered across his collarbone. The room smells like sweat and sex.

On the bed, Sanji shifts in his sleep, oblivious. And because the universe _hates_ Zoro, the blanket that was covering him chooses to slide away from the upper half of his body, revealing that he’s equally naked, just in case anyone still has any doubts about that. Which Zeff clearly isn’t, judging from the way his eyes shift back and forth between Zoro and Sanji.

“Uh,” Zoro begins, unsure. “I can explain,” which is true. He _can_ explain. He just really, really doesn’t want to.

Sanji, that bastard, is still sleeping peacefully, as if his boyfriend is not about to get murdered by his own father a few feet from him. Zoro thinks he can probably take Zeff on in a fair fight, but there’s this thing, where Zeff is the closest thing to a family Sanji’s ever had and Zoro would very much like to get into Sanji’s pants in the foreseeable future, so. Well. Death truly is the only option.

Zoro has fully accepted his demise when Zeff suddenly says, “you’re hungry.”

Zoro blinks. He instinctively raises a hand to hover around his very full stomach; they just had dinner a couple of hours ago. “It’s two a.m.,” he points out.

Zeff gives him a _look_ that would’ve sent lesser men scrambling for their lives. “It’s not a question, kid.”

And this is how Zoro finds himself in the surreal situation he’s currently in. It’s almost hysterical, in a way — he has stared down Marine Admirals and Shichibukais without so much as a blink, but here he is, half naked in the kitchen of an old chef from East Blue and can’t even bring himself to walk away.

“Eat up,” Zeff says as he half-places, half-slams a plate of fried rice on the table.

Zoro pokes at it. It doesn’t look poisoned, and it’s not like he has any other choice, so he takes a bite. Not bad.

They both eat as silence descends upon the kitchen, the kind that would have suffocated anyone who did not have Zoro’s nerve of steel. Zoro’s good with silences, though, so he waits until Zeff breaks it himself with a, “you seem better than the previous one.”

Zoro raises his eyebrow. Interesting. “Who might that be?”

“An old chef I used to employ,” Zeff elaborates. “Not that the Little Eggplant even realized he was infatuated with him — the kid was too busy chasing every pair of breasts to notice he might have felt something deeper with another man.”

That sounds like the cook all right.

“I assume it didn’t work out,” Zoro guesses. Sanji never mentioned him and he didn’t seem like he was leaving behind a lost love when he left with Luffy.

“Broke the kid’s heart when he was sixteen,” Zeff says vaguely.

“And he is still alive?” Zoro asks dryly, because he wouldn’t be surprised if Zeff murdered this chef in an over-protective fit.

Zeff scoffs. “He would _wish_ I had killed him.”

Zoro looks up from his plate. He never liked beating around the bushes like this, so he points out the obvious. “Is this a threat?”

That earns him a smirk from Zeff, sharp and clean. “Seem smarter than the previous one, too.”

Zoro takes _everything_ bad he’s ever said about Sanji being nervous before meeting Zoro’s master. Zoro’s instinct is telling him to run, his Observation Haki detecting ten different escape routes. But Zoro knows that this is something he has to endure, just like Sanji sat through Koshiro’s uncomfortable questions about their relationship — some sort of rite of passage, if he wants to keep Sanji. And he wants to.

Zeff takes a sip from his glass before continuing, “what if I say no?”

“Huh?”

“To your relationship,” Zeff says. “What if I tell you kids to quit it?”

Zoro scoffs. “With all due respect, unless the cook himself says no, I can give a rat’s ass to anyone else who tells me to leave.”

“The kid cares about my opinions a lot more than you could even comprehend,” Zeff fires back. “If I say no, it’s as good as the little eggplant himself telling you no.”

This is a test, Zoro’s instinct tells him. There’s something Zeff wants to hear from him. Fuck if Zoro knows, though. Zoro isn’t good with lying.

So he doesn’t.

“We were _nakama_ long before we were lovers. He is important to me, outside of any definition,” Zoro says, and means every word. “I’ll have him in any way I can have him. A _nakama_ isn’t any less than a lover.”

Zoro thinks, distantly, that this may have sounded like a war declaration. He essentially just told Sanji’s old man that he doesn’t care jack shit about Zeff’s opinion. Well, Zoro had a good run. At least he’ll die bearing the title of the Strongest Swordsman.

But Zeff doesn’t do anything. He simply waits for Zoro to finish his food, and even then, he doesn’t say anything as Zoro puts his spoon down on the empty plate and simply stands up.

“How was the rice?” Zeff suddenly asks, and Zoro pauses right in front of the kitchen door.

“’ts okay,” Zoro says without thinking; he isn’t about to start lying to get into Zeff’s good side, especially _now_ , after that disaster of a conversation. “The cook has made better.”

It’s apparently the right answer, because Zeff throws his head back and laughs.

“Date him, marry him, I don’t care,” Zeff says between peals of laughter. “Just don’t have sex in the kid’s old room — it’s right beside mine.”

Zoro flees back to Sanji’s room, and most definitely _doesn’t_ blush.


End file.
